[Vision2020] Bush Iraq WMD Deceptions Specifically Documented

[Ted Moffett]

All-

The following analysis at the web site below reveals the details of specific
false statements made by Bush administration operatives (including Bush)
regarding Iraq WMDs during the build up to the invasion, revealing they were
known to be false or questionable, based on credible evidence, before the
March, 2003 invasion.  There was no grand "intelligence failure," but rather
a deliberate coordinated effort to discount the available evidence shedding
doubt on many of the Bush administration assertions regarding Iraq WMD:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration
waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials,
including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false
statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national
security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that
the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively
galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under
decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews,
testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,
and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated
unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to
produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort
was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq *did* *not* possess any weapons of mass
destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of
numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and
the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that
Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little
effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of
erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated
in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the
officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media
interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false
statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of
prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al
Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the
two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each
made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56),
Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President
Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption
against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis.
This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from
both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary
sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on
September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than
25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to
war:

   - On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the
   Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no
   doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no
   doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies,
   and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled,
   Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time.
   Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron
   Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "
   - In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote
   fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told
   the nation in his weekly radio address: "The Iraqi regime possesses
   biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more
   and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or
   chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . .
   This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build
   one within a year." A few days later, similar findings were also included in
   a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass
   destruction — an analysis that hadn't been done in years, as the
   intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn't
   requested it.
   - In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked
   whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an
   assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and
   confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling
   evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and
   Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of
   the regime's relationship with  Al Qaeda is unclear."
   - On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush
   declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological
   laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in *State of
   Denial*, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine
   the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the
   labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the
   following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to
   manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
   - On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush
   asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
   sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence
   sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum
   tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an
   analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent
   an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he
   believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."
   - On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security
   Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based
   on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human
   sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to
   which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con
   artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were
   dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al
   Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt
   by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had
   provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would
   fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better
   treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."

The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with
congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the
mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of
the invasion.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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